Life Class

by Scarlet Blackwell

  Harley grinned. “My favorite kind of photo.”

  Ryan continued to smile. “Yeah.” He raised a hand in farewell as he left the terrace.

  There was no hot water when Ryan got home, but he didn’t mind a cold shower. He was sweaty and dirty and, more than that, uncomfortable with the breakfast conversation. He liked Harley; there was nothing about the guy not to like. He was generous, thoughtful and fun to be with. He was also bisexual and had confessed to being in a queer phase at that very moment. That made Ryan nervous. How could it not? It was surely patently obvious that Harley had designs on him. What with all the taking so long to finish the painting, the invites to eat, the staying over, the new shoes and the not-knocking-gay-sex-until-you’ve-tried-it. How could he not have designs on Ryan? Not that he’d made it obvious. He hadn’t done anything at all out of line yet, as far as Ryan could see, but maybe the other man was biding his time.

  He scolded himself as he got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and stood dripping at the sink to lather up for a shave.

  He was thinking of Harley as some sort of sexual predator about to jump his bones when he doubted anything could be further from the truth. After all, Harley had had ample time last night when Ryan had been asleep and defenseless in bed, hadn’t he? And the fact was Ryan had gone to Harley’s room and not the other way around. Which led him to another subject.

  As he’d climbed the stairs last night, he’d got the impression Harley was jerking off. He’d heard a few stifled gasps and the rustling of bed covers before it’d all gone quiet. He’d been afraid to go in after that, and when he did summon the courage, the man looked sweaty and disheveled. So what caused Harley to go straight upstairs from Edward Scissorhands to jerking off? Johnny Depp was hot as fuck to most people, gay or straight, but Ryan doubted many people got off to him as the pasty-faced guy with built-in hedge trimmers. What was the last thing Harley had done before going upstairs? He’d covered up Ryan with the blanket. He’d woken up with it snug around his neck. He paused with the razor against his jaw. Christ. Christ.

  Chapter Eight

  Ryan had been lying, or at least exaggerating, about the “stupid poses and ridiculous props”, because what the photos were was deeply erotic. Ryan had been two hours at home getting showered and changed and when he came back and nervously handed Harley a glossy magazine in the studio, he turned away quickly and went to the red satin bed.

  Harley turned the page and perused the table of contents. There he was, pages twenty to twenty-four, Ryan Morgan. Harley’s fingertips were a little damp as he flicked through the magazine and, while Ryan stripped across the room, looked at the sexiest pictures he’d ever seen in his life.

  Page twenty had Ryan stretched out naked full length on a bed, face down. Looking into the camera and leaning on his arms, his face dominated it, his eyes huge and violet-blue. While looking down the length of his body, the camera picked out the breadth of his shoulders, the black tattoo and the twin swells of those peach-like buttocks. The entire effect was stunning. Harley couldn’t take his eyes from those of Ryan in the picture for long seconds, but he forced himself to glance to the opposite page, realizing Ryan must be watching his reaction.

  Page twenty-one had Ryan in a pair of boxers, leaning against a wall with one arm stretched over his head. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes slitted and heavy, as if he’d just crawled out of bed, and the tight white material held the thick outline of a half-erect cock.

  Harley felt his own twitch. His hand trembled as he turned over to page twenty-two. Ryan sat in a chair, naked apart from a cowboy hat. Maybe that was what Ryan had meant about the stupid props, but Harley had seen Brokeback Mountain and there sure as hell was nothing ludicrous about Jake and Heath.

  Between his spread legs, Ryan cupped himself with large hands, hiding his modesty, but not the neatly cropped thatch of dark hair. Harley thought he would groan. This magazine knew a thing or two about teasing its readers. Ryan had been revealing more and more with every photo. He could only hope the last one was the big one.

  There was an ad for a gay dating service on the opposite page. Slowly, Harley turned over to page twenty-four and hit the jackpot.

  Ryan was stretched out naked in the sand on a glorious summer’s day. His naked body was tanned and gleaming with oil, his biceps and pecs huge, his stomach rippling with muscle. His head was turned to one side, looking coyly down his body at the camera, while his legs were spread, one of his hands resting on his inner thigh, almost touching his cock which lay there half hard, his balls heavy and hairless below.

  Harley bit his lip hard. He moved his body behind his easel. He was going to have to think of some excuse for Ryan to leave the magazine here and then he was going to jerk off over it until either he suffered from the worst case of repetitive strain injury ever or his dick fell off. Either one would suit him fine.

  He couldn’t even think straight. He knew Ryan was lying silent and naked across the room awaiting his verdict, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the false image before him to the real one a few feet away.

  “You’re shocked, right?” Ryan broke the silence nervously. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”

  Harley cleared his throat. “Ryan, I’ll be honest with you. These photos are sexy. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I…don’t know,” Ryan muttered.

  Harley finally dragged his gaze away from the god in the sand to the god on the bed. “The man who took these photos knew what he was doing to appeal to readers.” He tried to sound professional; tried not to act like a man whose hard-on was being asphyxiated by his jeans.

  “You think?” For a man who was so supremely confident of his body, Ryan certainly seemed unsure right now, and Harley found it endearing.

  “I do. And I want to show these to one of my friends, and I want him to photograph you. With more clothes, of course.”

  Ryan shifted on the bed, and Harley couldn’t help but be aware of every slide of his skin against the satin, of the thickly muscled arms, the broad shoulders, the rise and fall of the spine and the crest of the buttocks.

  I am in lust, he thought. I have to touch him, just once, no matter what.

  “That’s very kind of you,” Ryan said, and Harley took one last lingering look at the final photo before he closed the magazine and laid it down on the floor by his easel. He took the cover off his canvas.

  “Right, then,” he said, trying desperately to focus above his pounding heart and his aching dick. Instead, he asked himself if he had the balls to make a pass at Ryan that afternoon or if he would just make do with the magazine after he’d gone.

  He knew it was going to be the latter. Harley had never needed to do things like this, because the people he liked always came to him. To have to chase someone who wasn’t interested in him was a novel experience, and an awkward one. He felt out of his mind with desire. His brush on the canvas Ryan’s skin seemed to touch his own burning flesh, searing it, turning it into an inferno, and meanwhile his heart continued to beat harder and harder, and Ryan watched him with cool blue eyes from the bed, his face implacable as though oblivious to Harley’s torment and suffering.

  Harley frowned. Just what kind of game was Ryan playing? Because he didn’t buy all this. Ryan was a tease who was more than aware of his body. Harley had known that on his first sitting. Was all this an act and was he getting off on what he was doing, watching Harley squirming and panting with desperation? A slow, indignant anger built inside him, bringing with it shame and humiliation.

  Ryan glanced away, staring out of the window with what appeared to be clear disinterest, and Harley suddenly flipped.

  “Look at me,” he growled. “I’m supposed to be painting your face.”

  Ryan did as he was told, an expression of surprise on his features.

  This didn’t do it at all. Ryan had his head all wrong. In fact, Harley noticed now his model’s pose was completely different from the one on the canvas. The lin
es of his body were different, his face not angled the way it had been in previous sittings. This trivial fact riled him beyond belief.

  He stalked out from behind the easel, complaining, “What’s wrong with you today, Ryan?” He got down on one knee at the head of the mattress and reached out, taking Ryan’s face in both hands. “It’s all wrong,” he told him, turning his head none too gently. “Like this. This is…” And he stopped as his gaze met Ryan’s and the breath caught in his throat.

  Those ocean blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on his, looking up at Harley from the mattress, cool and almost defiant at the brusque treatment. Harley’s stomach clenched. The hands which had a hard grip on Ryan’s face loosened, and his fingertips slid deliberately across Ryan’s cheeks in a caress. He tilted Ryan’s face up to his as he leaned down to him.

  Ryan made no protest. He only continued to look at him as though he didn’t realize what Harley was going to do. Which was okay, because Harley was sure he didn’t know what he was going to do, either. All he knew was that he was leaning right over Ryan, holding his face, and his lips were moving closer of their own accord. He saw Ryan’s eyes close at the last moment as their lips met.

  Stars exploded behind Harley’s eyes. Ryan’s mouth was so soft and warm and sweet, it completely undid him.

  Their lips joined for only a second before they came apart again, and Harley felt Ryan’s shocked expulsion of breath against his mouth.

  Instead of moving away, Harley took Ryan by the back of the neck with one hand and kissed him again. Ryan’s mouth opened to his, their breath mingling, and Harley’s fingers stroked the soft, stubbly hair at the back of his head as he explored those velvet soft lips.

  Ryan kissed him back gently, hesitantly, the kiss almost chaste, no tongues involved, and Harley sank into the sweetest ecstasy he’d ever known. He’d never experienced a kiss like this in his life. Ryan’s mouth seemed to meld perfectly to his own as though it had been made for him. His other hand crept hesitantly onto one naked, powerful shoulder, and Ryan’s hands came up against his chest, palms open.

  For the briefest moment they curled into fists, gripping the material of his shirt and making Harley’s heart pound with excitement as he imagined Ryan was about to drag him onto the bed. Just as suddenly, they uncurled again and, palms outstretched against his chest, Ryan shoved him away. Harley fell backward onto his ass, stunned.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan cried, his eyes wide with horror and disgust. Harley sat on the floor and stared in confusion. He could have sworn Ryan was reciprocating the kiss in style a moment ago. Ryan climbed off the bed and stalked furiously to his pile of clothes. Unmistakably he was half-hard.

  Harley swallowed at this evidence, his own pants tented and uncomfortable. Ryan climbed into his boxers and pulled on his jeans before hopping on each foot to put on his socks, finally cramming his feet into his new shoes.

  He left the laces undone and grabbed his T-shirt, and Harley finally moved, clambering to his feet. “Ryan,” he beseeched, trying to catch his arm.

  “Don’t!” Ryan shoved him backward hard, his eyes flashing wildly. “That’s what all this has been about! The dinners and the fucking shoes. Get this into your fucking head, Harley: I’m not queer!” He stormed from the studio.

  Harley ran after him with his heart in his shoes and regret clawing his throat. “Ryan!” he called, following him desperately down the stairs. Ryan wrenched the front door open and slammed it shut behind him.

  Skidding to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, Harley stood staring at it. He couldn’t help but feel that the greatest thing he’d ever known had just walked out of his life for good.

  At home, Ryan’s mouth burned. He brushed his teeth and used mouthwash, but still it burned and still he could feel the soft pressure of Harley’s mouth and its taste of honey. Jesus Christ, a man had kissed him. A man! But, he had to remind himself, it wasn’t just any man, it was Harley, a man he was inordinately fond of, a man who might have even been his friend.

  He paced backward and forward, alternately groaning and squeezing his eyes shut. He’d let Harley do that to him, and he’d kissed him back, hadn’t he? What was wrong with him?

  The next day, when he woke up, an envelope had been pushed under his door containing a thousand dollars in cash and a handwritten note which read: Forgive me.

  He didn’t know who Harley had got his address from, but that was kind of irrelevant. Harley didn’t owe him that much, and it made Ryan feel like the whore he was. He wished he could take the money back to the rich man and tell him to shove it, but this was the real world and he couldn’t afford the luxury of pride. Not anymore.

  He sat with the note in his hand for a while, then he hovered with it over the trash can for long moments. Finally, he tucked it into a drawer.

  Chapter Nine

  Six months later

  A knocking at the door disturbed Ryan from sleep. He blinked, feeling the pounding in his head immediately from the champagne, his mouth dry. He sat up, a wave of nausea overwhelming him, and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. He pulled on a T-shirt and boxers as he made his way to the door, looking at his watch, prepared to berate the caller if it was too early. But it was nearly midday, to his surprise.

  When he pulled open the door, his heart surged as he saw his visitor. He remembered every detail of their encounter last night at the gallery. “Dude, I’m hung over and not in the mood for any more bullshit from you.”

  Harley was pale, dark circles under those startling amber eyes, his hair disheveled and hanging over his forehead in glossy strands. “I didn’t give you any bullshit, Ryan,” he said quietly. “I told you how it was.”

  “Go to hell.” Ryan went back into his apartment, leaving the door open, making for the kitchen where he ran a glass of water and drank it down in one. Harley, meanwhile, followed him in and closed the door.

  “Listen,” he began, walking into the kitchen.

  “Harley.” Ryan slammed down the glass. “Go find some other straight guy to seduce, because I’m not interested.”

  Harley’s eyes were large with sorrow, his mouth tight and unhappy. “I didn’t try to seduce you. I only kissed you. And you can say you didn’t want it, but you kissed me back.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Ryan pushed past Harley and went into the bedroom with his face burning. Harley merely followed him.

  “You’ve got a selective memory as to how it went,” he said defiantly as Ryan dragged on some jeans. “We kissed. And then you tried to say you didn’t want it.”

  Ryan turned on him viciously. He grabbed Harley by the front of his shirt and pushed him against the wardrobe. “Get out of my house and out of my life right now, fag,” he said between his teeth.

  “You know what? I came here to offer you half the money from the sale of your painting,” Harley cried, twisting in his grip. “You make me out to be so fucking bad, to have these wicked designs on you, but I bet I was the only one who didn’t offer you money to fuck me.”

  Ryan went still. His hand fell from Harley’s shirt, and he took a step back. He couldn’t believe his ears. He’d waited all this time for Harley to make mention of what he must have known all along, and here it finally was, Ryan’s shame laid out before him. He wished to sink through the floor. “What did you say?” he asked in a deadly tone.

  “You heard me,” Harley shouted. “I fucking tiptoed around you and tried to control myself when nobody else gave you that courtesy. Well, now I’m done playing nice. If they had it, I want it too.”

  Ryan stared at him wide-eyed, his mouth open while Harley dug into the back pocket of his jeans to bring out a folded and battered checkbook and a pen. He opened it and stood on one foot, resting it on his thigh and beginning to scrawl.

  “I was going to give you two thousand, five hundred for the painting,” he told Ryan with his attention on the book. “So I’ll double it.” He ripped the check from the book and held it out. “Five thousand.”

  Ryan c
ouldn’t begin to understand what Harley was offering. Actually, he could, but he would rather not think about it. His mouth worked silently a moment before he spoke. “For…what?”

  Harley grunted in annoyance. “You can drop the innocent act now. It really doesn’t suit you. Five thousand to come home with me. Yes or no?” He waved the check impatiently.

  Rage consumed Ryan whole. He shoved Harley back against the wardrobe. “I’m not a fucking whore!”

  “Really?” Harley’s voice was scathing. “Funny, I thought that’s exactly what you were.”

  Without thought, Ryan pulled back his fist and hit him, and Harley’s head thudded into the wood with a hollow clunk before he slithered to the floor semi-conscious, still holding the check.

  Ryan stood over him, not knowing what to do, only knowing he was filled with regret as blood dripped from Harley’s lip onto the front of his shirt. He couldn’t believe what he’d done. No matter what Harley had just said to him, he didn’t deserve this.

  Harley shook himself and climbed laboriously to his feet, ignoring the repentant hand Ryan held out to him. He leaned against the wardrobe, breathing heavily, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He lifted his head to look at Ryan, his amber eyes flat and cold.

  To Ryan’s disbelief, Harley held out the check once more. Harley still wanted him? After what he had just done, he was still willing to pay him five thousand dollars for the privilege of his body? Harley must still have it bad for him, even six months down the line. That idea didn’t sit comfortably with Ryan. He stared at the three zeroes on the check. All his problems would be over if he took it, at least in the short term, because the situation was as dire as could be at the moment. He was four months behind on his rent, and his landlord had given him one month’s notice to leave. Either pay in full during that time, or get out at the end of it. The chances of him being able to find the money were zero. This offer was like Ryan’s fairy godmother appearing, but with a nasty sexual bartering system in tow.